by Kate Quinn
Just a vast, looming question.
We got ourselves washed and tidied, and Finn brought cups of black coffee wheedled from the proprietor. My roiling stomach grudgingly accepted the coffee, and soon we were back in the car, Finn turning mutely for Limoges. I sat there in my wrinkled day-old clothes, rubbing at my splitting temples, pondering the question now staring me in the face.
What now, Charlie St. Clair?
What now?
It was a quiet drive back. I found myself staring at the city’s summertime loveliness as though it were a stage set: the weeping willows over the river, the half-timbered houses, and the beautiful Roman bridge Rose would have seen when she served drinks at Le Lethe. I had no reason to be in this city any longer—and yet, no destination to make me leave it.
“Wonder if Gardiner’s in,” Finn said. The first words he’d spoken since asking me if I’d dreamed.
I looked at him blankly. “In from where?”
“Her meeting with that English officer from Bordeaux,” Finn said. “Remember?”
I’d forgotten. “Wasn’t that yesterday?”
“Maybe it was.” We hadn’t exactly planned on staying the night in the countryside. What now? The question still echoed. What now?
Finn parked the Lagonda and we trailed inside. The auberge’s entryway had been freshly polished; I smelled beeswax over the fresh flowers on the desk. Roses, pink roses the color of Rose’s cheeks, and my head throbbed sickly. An irritable clerk sat behind the desk, and in front of her was the kind of Englishman who thinks that if he speaks loudly enough, foreigners will automatically understand him.
“EVELYN—GARDINER? Is—she—ICI? Ici, here, comprenez? GARDINER—”
“Oui, monsieur,” the clerk said, with the air of someone who had said it before. “Elle est ici, mais elle ne veut pas vous voir.”
“English, anglais? Anyone?” The man looked around: tall with a graying mustache, perhaps in his midfifties, carrying a gut before him like a badge of honor. A civilian suit, but the bearing of the man inside it was aggressively soldierly.
Finn and I looked at each other, and then Finn stepped forward. “I’m Miss Gardiner’s driver.”
“Good, good.” The man gave an up-and-down glance of disapproval at Finn’s slovenly appearance, but his tone was cordial enough. “Tell Miss Gardiner I’m here, please. She’ll see me.”
“She won’t,” Finn said.
The man stared, mustache bristling. “Of course she will! I saw her at dinner just last bloody night, we were perfectly cordial—”
Finn shrugged. “She evidently doesn’t want to see you now.”
“See here—”
“You don’t pay my wages. She does.”
The French clerk rolled her eyes behind the Englishman’s back. I stepped forward, curiosity making its way through my fog of grief. “Sir—you wouldn’t happen to be Captain Cameron?” He didn’t match the image I’d been building of Cameron, but what other English officer would come running from Bordeaux on Eve’s call?
“Cameron? That sad old fraud?” The visitor gave a snort, contemptuous. “I’m Major George Allenton, and I’m wasting valuable time here, so you scamper up those stairs, girl, and tell Miss Gardiner I’m here.”
“No.” It sounded like insolence, but it was just exhaustion. Quite honestly I didn’t see why I should stir a finger for anyone this rude. I was glad he wasn’t Captain Cameron. I’d liked Eve’s stories of him.
The major looked at me, face reddening, and he opened his mouth as if to argue, but all at once he deflated. “Fine,” he said, fumbling in his pocket. “You tell that sour skinny old maid the War Office owes her no more favors, regardless of what she’s done for us in the past.” He slapped a flat black case into my hand. “And she can throw these down the loo if she likes, but I’m done keeping them for her.”
“When did you know her?” Finn asked as the major clapped his hat to his head.
“Both wars, she worked for me. And I wish she’d never been recruited for the first one, that hitch-tongued deceitful bitch.”
Finn and I stared at each other as the major stamped away. Finally I opened the case, expecting to see—what? Jewels, documents, a ticking bomb? With Eve you never knew. But it was medals: four of them, pinned precisely across a card.
“The Medaille de Guerre, the Croix de Guerre with palm, the Croix de la Legion d’Honneur . . .” Finn let out a low whistle. “And that’s the Order of the British Empire.”
I released a slow breath. Eve wasn’t just a former spy. She was a decorated heroine, a legend of the past for whom senior army officers still jumped even if they disliked her. I touched the O.B.E. with a fingertip. “If she’d been awarded these years ago, why wouldn’t she take them?”
“I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 26
EVE
October 1915
Lili managed one muttered instruction as she and Eve were frog-marched into the station. The Germans were shouting, alarms blared, and under the furor Lili murmured through motionless lips, Pretend you don’t know me. I’ll get you out of this.
Eve gave a minuscule shake of the head, not daring to look at Lili. They were being rushed along by a pair of hulking soldiers, Lili half-hoisted off her feet, Eve’s arms in such a tight grip her hands were going numb. The terror hadn’t quite caught up yet; Eve’s thoughts darted like mice at a sudden light. But her refusal came reflexively: she could not walk away free, leaving Lili in German hands. Never.
But another burst of shouting came, and Lili’s lips shaped one word.
Verdun.
Eve froze. The massive attack planned against Verdun next year. Captain Cameron in Tournai, waiting for the report. The paper slip with all the attack’s details, wrapped around the inner band of a ring on Lili’s right hand. Dear God, if the Germans found that—
But there was no more time to think, to exchange so much as a desperate glance. They were hustled inside the station, past a telephone and a cluster of German soldiers, and the German captain snapped orders. “Separate them, I will put out a warning—” Eve found herself flung into a narrow room overlooking the street. A half dozen German soldiers were there already, partially dressed, yawning through their morning routine. A young blond sergeant in his undershirt gaped at Eve, and another was shaving in a bucket of water. Eve stared back, keeping her eyes from hunting for an escape. There was none. They’d be on her like a pack of wolves if she moved an inch toward the window. To her left was another door with a glass pane, looking into an even smaller room, and Eve’s throat closed as she saw Lili shoved inside. Her hat was gone and her blond hair coming down in a tangle; she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s skirt and blouse. But she caught herself against the room’s long counter, eyes glittering and her mouth curving in a smile, and she stripped off her gloves as though preparing to sit down to tea.
“No one t-t-touch me!” Eve cried out suddenly, eyes flying among the German soldiers around her. None of them had made a move; they were all too surprised, but she gave a shrill scream anyway. She wanted them looking at her, not through the window at Lili who was swiftly prising off the ring on her right hand and going for the slip of paper wrapped around its band. “Don’t touch me,” Eve shrieked, and the youngest soldier stepped forward as if in reassurance. Eve stared past him at Lili, who still smiled that half smile. She watched as her companion popped the paper slip into her mouth and swallowed it.
The German captain flew screaming through the door of Lili’s cell before Eve could feel any pangs of relief. He saw, he saw . . . Gripping Lili by the neck, the captain tried to force his fingers into her mouth. She sealed her teeth, baring them at him like a wolverine, and he flung her away in disgust. Boots stamped through the corridor outside in a rush, and Eve sank to the floor and started to sob. Not just because Lili had been caught disposing of a message, but because Marguerite would sob. Marguerite would be terrified and innocent and have no idea who that woman in the other ro
om was. Eve wanted to fly at these German pigs and tear their throats out, but she had a job to do.
Verdun.
So she huddled against the floor weeping as German boots moved uneasily about her. The soldiers stared and murmured, which Eve ignored because of course Marguerite understood no German past ja and nein. Her every screaming nerve focused on the next room where there was no sound—none at all—from the leader of the Alice Network.
They won’t know she’s its leader, Eve thought harshly. They don’t know what a prize they have in her. But she still saw a nightmare image of Lili shoved up against a wall like Edith Cavell. Blindfolded, her hands bound, an X marked on her bosom for the guns to aim at. Lili crumpling to the ground, probably still smiling.
No, Eve screamed inside, but she knew how to use her own horror, how to let the image bring another flood of tears. Tears and abject helplessness would help more than any show of courage. No one feared a helpless, weeping girl.
It wasn’t long before a policeman came, and with him a grim-looking woman in green serge whom Eve recognized. She frequently assisted at German checkpoints, a merciless bitch Lili had nicknamed the Frog for her green uniform and greedy padlike fingers as she searched people’s belongings. She looked down at Eve now, hard-faced, and barked out one word in French. “Undress.”
“H-h-here?” Eve rose, swollen-eyed and hugging herself, shrinking away from all the curious men. “I c-c-c-c—”
“Undress!” the Frog snapped, but the policeman looked vaguely ashamed and ordered the soldiers out. Eve was left alone with the Frog, who started wrenching at her buttons.
“If you’re carrying messages like that other bitch,” she warned, “I’ll find them and it’ll be the firing squad for you.” She stripped Eve’s shirtwaist off, showing the frayed chemise underneath, and Eve loosened her own skirt with clumsy fingers. This cannot be real. She was just putting on this skirt a few hours ago before the dying fire in René’s chamber, as he wrinkled his nose at her underclothes and said, “You look like a charity-school wretch, my pet. I’m getting you a proper chemise, something with Valenciennes lace . . .” Eve was swamped by a wave of dizziness and promptly went with it, pitching over onto the floor as though fainting. She curled up, moaning faintly as the Frog stripped the rest of her clothes away and performed a humiliatingly thorough search. Verdun, Eve thought, eyes squeezed shut, as the woman’s hard fingers probed the undersides of her breasts and between her fingers and roughly through her hair. Verdun, she thought as her hairpins were yanked out one by one. Thank God she wasn’t carrying information around a pin this time . . .
It didn’t take long. Perhaps ten minutes, as the Frog searched first Eve’s body and then her clothes—her skirt hem for lumps, her shoe heels for paper slips. At last a sharp slap stung Eve’s cheek, and she opened her eyes, still leaking tears. “Get dressed,” the Frog said, looking disappointed.
Eve sat up, hugging her own nakedness. “C-c-can I have a glass of w-w-w-w—”
The Frog mocked her stammer. “Glass of what, my g-g-g-girl?”
“Water,” Eve cried, sniveling away, and could have kissed the bitch for her mockery. Let them think me an idiot. Just a stupid girl who let a stranger borrow her pass.
“Want water?” The Frog pointed to the glass of scummy liquid where the dressing soldiers had clearly dunked their toothbrushes. “Help yourself.” She left with a laugh at her own wit.
Eve dressed stiffly. On the outside Marguerite Le François trembled and shivered, barely functioning, while inside Evelyn Gardiner’s mind raced along like a high-speed train. She looked through to the next room, where the Frog was marching in on Lili, and was very much afraid she knew what Lili planned to do.
The Frog barked at Lili to undress.
You’ll resist, Eve thought.
Lili stood still as a pillar, refusing to move. The Frog seized the much smaller woman and yanked at her skirt.
You’ll keep resisting, Eve thought.
Lili struggled, but the Frog was stout and heavy-handed, and she wrenched Lili out of her clothes piece by piece. Lili stopped thrashing, but she didn’t cower in nakedness as Eve had; she held herself straight and stoic as the Frog patted her down. Every rib was visible, and the bones of her sternum jutted out like a ladder. So small. The Frog moved on to the pile of clothing atop the satchel, shoving the smaller woman so hard out of the way that Lili staggered, but her contemptuous smile never faded even as she watched her satchel ransacked.
Don’t find anything, Eve prayed, but the cries went up as the rifled satchel delivered Lili’s identification cards, five or six of them, held in preparation for swift crossings. The Frog waved the cards in Lili’s face, shrieking, but Lili just stared back, impassive.
Eventually they allowed Lili to dress, and as she did up the final buttons at her throat, a man entered with a cup in hand. Eve had angled herself so she could watch through the curtain of her loose hair even as she huddled weeping, and she recognized the newcomer: Herr Rotselaer, chief of police in nearby Tournai. Eve had seen him only at a distance in Lille, but she had compiled a report on him from comments dropped by other officers. A small dark man, dressed with care in a well-cut jacket. His eyes were piercing, and they devoured Lili. “Mademoiselle,” he said in French. “Are you thirsty?”
He proffered the cup in his hand. Even through the glass, Eve saw it had a curdled yellow tint. Something to make Lili vomit up that message she’d swallowed.
“Thank you, monsieur,” Lili said politely. “I am not thirsty, at least not for milk. Have you any brandy? It’s been an absolute pisser of a day.” Just as she had said when she first met Eve in Le Havre. Eve could see the two of them in that stuffy café, the rain pouring down outside, Lili in her outrageous cartwheel of a hat. The memory stabbed like a knife. Welcome to the Alice Network.
“Come, no fuss!” Herr Rotselaer tried to sound jocular, pushing the cup out. “Swallow, or say why!”
The Frog shook Lili by the elbow, but Lili just smiled and shook her head.
Herr Rotselaer sprang at her, trying to force the cup between her lips as the Frog yanked her head back, but Lili knocked the cup flying. Yellowed milk splatted across the floor. The Frog slapped Lili, but Herr Rotselaer held up a hand. “We’ll take her for questioning,” he said, and Eve’s heart gave a great lurch. “Her and the other one.”
“Her?” Lili snorted. “She’s a stupid little shopgirl, not a spy. I chatted her up because she was the only one in line who looked half-witted enough to share her safe-conduct pass!”
Herr Rotselaer glanced through the glass where Eve huddled, crying. “Bring her here.” The Frog burst through the adjoining door, seizing Eve by the elbow and bundling her into Lili’s cell. Eve went to her knees before the chief of police, pushing her hiccuping sobs up to outright wails. She found hysteria surprisingly easy to muster. Inside she was ice bound, watching the blubbering mess on the outside. Through her puffy eyes she could see Lili’s small bare foot not six inches away.
“Mademoiselle—” Herr Rotselaer tried to catch Eve’s eyes, but she just cringed. “Mademoiselle Le François, if that is your true name—”
“I recognize her, sir,” another German voice volunteered. The young captain had entered, the one who’d seized them in the first place. Was that why he crossed for a closer look at their papers, because he recognized Eve? My fault, my fault— “She lives on the Rue Saint-Cloux; I remember her from inspections. A respectable girl.”
“Marguerite Le François.” Herr Rotselaer fingered Eve’s identity cards, jerking his chin at Lili. “Do you know this woman?”
“N—n—” It felt like betrayal, the word forming on Eve’s lips. “N—” It felt like a kiss of betrayal to Lili’s cheek, like thirty pieces of silver weighing her tongue down, sour and metallic. “No,” Eve whispered.
“Of course she doesn’t know me.” Lili sounded brusque, bored. “I never saw her before today. You think I’d try to cross a checkpoint with a stuttering idio
t?”
Herr Rotselaer looked at Eve: hair sticking to her wet cheeks, hands trembling so hard she looked like she was being run through with electrical current. “Where were you going, girl?”
“T—t—t—”
“For God’s sake, can you not speak straight? Where were you going?”
“T—t—t—” It was no act; Eve’s tongue had never hitched so badly in her life. “M—m—my niece’s c—c—c—my niece’s c—communion. Tour—tour—”
“Tournai?”
“Yes, H—H—H—yes, Herr R—R—”
“You have family there?”
It took Eve whole minutes to answer. Herr Rotselaer shifted from foot to foot. Lili looked impassive, but Eve could sense the tension humming through her taut as a wire. She stood an agonizing arm’s length away, but her thoughts were clear as glass.
Keep blubbering, little daisy. Just keep blubbering.
Herr Rotselaer tried to ask more questions, but Eve collapsed into hysterical sobs, sinking down on the floor. The boards smelled harsh and antiseptic. She whimpered like a kicked puppy. Her pulse was slow and cold.
“Oh, for God’s sake—” Herr Rotselaer made a disgusted gesture to the young captain. “Write the girl a new safe-conduct pass to Tournai and turn her loose.” He turned back to Lili, eyes gleaming. “You, Mademoiselle l’Espionne, are going to answer some questions. We have other friends of yours—”
Violette, Eve thought, even as the German captain helped her up.
“—and things will go hard with them if you refuse to talk.”
Lili regarded the chief of police. “You lie,” she said finally. “Because you are afraid. That’s good, Herr Rotselaer. I will say nothing more.”
Her eyes passed across Eve’s, and there was a salute in them. Then she looked at the wall and sealed her mouth like a stone.